Officials of the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation have announced plans for the privately funded construction of the Jefferson Research Library at the International Center for Jefferson Studies on the Kenwood estate near Monticello, Virginia. A presidential library honoring Abraham Lincoln was recently authorized for federal matching funds by the House.
“We envision this to be the kind of one-stop shop for the study of Jefferson—or at least the first stop,” Foundation President Daniel P. Jordan told the Associated Press July 9.
The library will house 28,000 books about Jefferson and his time, Monticello research reports, newspaper clippings, an archive of Monticello images, and Jefferson papers. Eventually, the library plans to place an electronic archive of Jefferson’s documents on the Web.
The foundation has raised more than $5 million of the estimated $5.5 million that will be needed for the construction of the building. The largest donation came from foundation trustees Martin and Luella Davis of Connecticut, who gave $2.5 million.
Posted July 17, 2000.